Twas the Night before.. the night before Christmas..

Frodov

Bronze Member
May 24, 2007
1,021
34
Lexington, KY
Detector(s) used
Whites Prism IV / Bullseye II pinpointer
Twas the night before.. the ..uh... night before Christmas..

With relatives inbound from far and away, and festivities planned from early in the morning to late the next day.. I should be bed sleeping and my energy storing, yet here I sit at the computer, my story I relay.
Okay okay okay.. enough with the poetry. <grin> Probably not very original anyway huh? <shrug> Oh well. It is true that I should have my sorry butt in bed right now though, getting some rest for tomorrow... Christmas Eve (day). But when I lay down to sleep, it’s not visions of sugar plum fairies I see dancing in my head, no. What I’m seeing is coins, and rings, and all kinds of things. The kinds of things that we metal detectorists find while in pursuit of our hobby. Things like I found yesterday and today in a couple of short hunts at some nearby elementary school “tot lots”.
Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, with my Christmas shopping done and my nerves shot all to hello and how are we? <grin> Holiday Shopping is not for the faint of heart, thank goodness and all that is holy that I could spend some time trying to unwind and avoiding any more shopping traffic and hustle and bustle. Nothing like a nice warm snug set of headphones and the melodious tones of targets setting off your detector to calm the savaged spirit. Why it’s enough to bring you to your knees.. in joy! Especially when you are digging up said target. It’s been rather cold and wet around these parts of late. While not nearly the blizzard conditions that many parts of the country have endured lately, we had a few inches of snow and a lot of rain here in Central Kentucky over the last couple of weeks. When I finally got a little time to get out and try to detect some, I chose a venue that would not be quite so soggy for my knees. Woodchips are the answer. Oh sure, they get wet too, and even freeze when enough water and cold temps combine, but my window of opportunity was rather small this time, and the chips are forgiving and not so soggy as the dirt and grass. So it was off to the tot-lots and playgrounds of the local elementary schools. I’ve not been detecting them much of late because of school being in session, and my days off falling on days when the kiddies are in school. I won’t detect the playgrounds on school days.
So there I was, yesterday at two different schools and two more today. All the kiddies locally are out of school for the Christmas break, so the playgrounds were fair game. My window, or windows of opportunity were just a couple of hours yesterday and again today, so I made the best of it, err, them. While it didn’t rain or snow either day, it was a bit overcast, but even with cooler temperatures it wasn’t so cold as to need a survival suit or arctic outer wear. Oddly enough, the playgrounds were pretty much deserted all the same. I guess everyone was still out shopping or stuck in traffic somewhere. Fine by me. With my two short hunts, each day, all my finds seem to have run together. I’m not exactly sure what I found where, or in what order, but I know I found a BUNCH of clad and the usual tot-lot sundry of buttons..

Buttons.jpg

There were pull tabs, of course, but there were far more Zipper Pulls than usual.. of course the weather has been colder hasn’t it?

Zipper Pulls.jpg

One tends to find a lot of “shoe bling” and pins and charms when hunting around woodchips and tot-lots, these last hunts were no exception.

Bling.jpg

At one schoolyard I found the remains of a keychain. It’s a promotional item that the boosters sell to raise money for whatever, I’ve seen similar keychains for other organizations or businesses. This one was just the “spinner” portion with the school logo and name on it.

Pride Comp.jpg

I found a keychain, so it only fits that I found a key as well. I’m not so sure it was even at the same school though. I also found a bullet, not far from the key. I don’t know exactly what caliber this bullet is though, maybe a .25?

Key.jpg

Then there was this tiny little bicycle.. pedal.. Tiny.. VERY VERY TINY..

Pedal.jpg

Maybe that little bike belonged to this character.. I got CHUCKED!

Chuck Comp.jpg

Always nice to find a Chuck-E-Cheese Token.. and foreign coinage as well. Costa Rican “colones” ? is that like a nickel maybe? I don’t know, but this next find really got my heart to racing. Brushing back the woodchips and revealing this flash of gold!

Ring1.jpg
Ring2.jpg

*sigh* Oh yeah, it’s pretty, but it’s not gold. No hallmarks, no stamps, and the stone is paste or at best, QZ.... and it’s missing a set. Oh well, it was still fun to find. This other stuff, isn’t so much fun to find, especially in a playground where someone’s child could have potentially fallen on one of them or run one into their foot or something. I’m talking about scrap metal trash. Guess I did my civic duty and cleaned up a little bit at the playgrounds.

Scrap.jpg

My reward? Why a new car! Uh.. okay, so maybe it’s not so new, and it’s little small. But hey! It’s a Range Rover!

Rover.JPG

Yeah, I cleaned up. And for the amount of time Spent, even if it was divided between several different locations over two days, I think I did pretty well.

Clad.jpg

Money found is money made. All that clad is going into the sorely depleted “vacation fund” that got cleaned out to take care of some holiday shopping recently. Boy am I glad that the shopping is over.. until after Christmas.. <shuddering> Wonder if I can manage to hide out in the basement till New Years? <grin> Nah probably not. Oh well. It’s now officially Christmas Eve.. very very very early Christmas eve morning I might add. Time for me to go put my sorry butt to bed.. and to watch the visions of coins and rings and lots of bling.. good night all, and to all a very VERY MERRRY CHRISTMAS!

Frodov
 

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